Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Overkill

We had a little get-together this past weekend, partially because we hadn't seen our camp friends in a while, but mostly because JG would get a chance to fire up the new toy. We made a list of all the stuff we had to do in preparation, like clean off lawn furniture, buy meat, set out towels for overnighters, make pasta salad, and get beverages. That last one really had me stumped.

Together, JG and I make up a terrible gauge of what people drink. I happen to be married to He Who Drinks Only Water (And the Occasional Beer), while I am a largeish hummingbird in the amount of sugary liquid I consume. I do love me some root beer. But what to buy for our more normal friends? And then, what if we don't finish everything? Who wants to be stuck with 2/3 of a case of orange soda? Not this girl.

We ended up with beer for the boys, Smirnoff for the girls, soda for the others, and water for the virtuous. There was nothing that JG or I wouldn't drink on our own, so I thought we'd be fine if there were leftovers. I'm always in the camp that overpacks "just in case," so the visually startling quantities were okay with me. After all, I thought, people will drink it, so it's no big deal.

Cut to after the party.

Our once-cavernous fridge has been taken over by leftover drinks. I swear they multiplied in there. As it turns out, we purchased enough of each beverage to account for the highly improbable occasion that everyone would want the same thing at the same time for the entirety of his or her stay. Which totally didn't happen. I estimate that 1-3 of each item was consumed, leaving behind the vast majority. To make things worse, JG decided that my college mini-fridge was using up too much extra energy cooling off the sodas, and all of those were packed in, too. I'm pretty sure that we have no room for any solid food in our fridge now, unless you include condiments in that category.

The plan now is to have more people come to our house so that we can make a dent in the aluminum and glass fortress that used to be a regular fridge. So far, we've lined up two people tomorrow and three more on the next night, but I'm not sure that only five people will help that much... Maybe they can give us a clue as to how to estimate this kind of thing more accurately. At least I'm not stuck with orange soda, right?